Labor Market Pulse · Finance · September 2026
Finance Labor Market Report: Pascagoula, MS MSA — September 2026
Pascagoula Controller pay falls as national rate climbs sharply.
Metro Controller median dropped to $89,508 against a national climb to $113,754, even as entry-level Tax Specialist and Billing Specialist pay rose significantly in Jackson County.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Jackson County unemployment: 3.5% — vs 3.7% Mississippi, 4.1% U.S.
- MS Finance & Insurance employment: 34,200 jobs — Down 0.9% year-over-year, June 2026
- MS Financial Activities weekly hours: 35.4 hrs — Down from 37.8 hrs year-ago
- National Financial Activities jobs lost: 129,000 — Since May 2025, per BLS payrolls
Key takeaways
Controller pay here is falling as the national rate climbs.
Metro Controller median sits at $89,508, down sharply while the national figure rose to $113,754 — a widening gap that raises retention risk for finance leadership roles tied to audit trails and close oversight. Organizations relying on local-only benchmarking may be underpricing this role relative to where mobile candidates can go.
Entry-level finance pay is surging locally even as roles shrink statewide.
Tax Specialist and Billing Specialist advertised pay both moved up significantly in the metro, even as Mississippi Finance and Insurance employment fell 0.9% year-over-year. This likely reflects employers competing for a thinner pipeline rather than genuine headcount expansion — a signal to budget for wage pressure on transactional roles despite overall sector contraction.
Reduced overtime hours may be quietly easing close-cycle cost.
Average weekly hours in Mississippi Financial Activities dropped from 37.8 to 35.4 year-over-year, consistent with employers pulling back discretionary hours rather than cutting staff. Finance leaders modeling fiscal-year-end costs should factor this into accrual assumptions rather than assuming flat overtime trends.
National CPA shortage signals haven't reached this metro's pay data yet.
National F&A leaders report a 2026 Talent Shortage Index of 77%, up sharply from a 2025 surplus, yet Pascagoula's Senior Accountant and Financial Analyst advertised pay show only moderate movement. Gap suggests local compensation benchmarking should watch for a lagged correction rather than assume the metro is immune to shortage-driven wage inflation.
Median advertised pay by role — Pascagoula, MS MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controller | $82,440 | $89,508 | $89,508 | Significant decline | $113,754 |
| Senior Accountant * | $71,200 | $78,251 | $80,000 | Moderate increase | $87,731 |
| Financial Analyst | $61,700 | $69,990 | $73,654 | Significant increase | $94,782 |
| Billing Specialist | $31,969 | $38,038 | $41,600 | Significant increase | $49,512 |
| Tax Specialist | $29,228 | $33,606 | $39,528 | Significant increase | $65,842 |
| Credit Analyst * | $44,692 | $59,904 | $62,585 | Moderate increase | $71,758 |
| FP&A Manager * | $96,751 | $119,059 | $128,330 | Significant decline | $128,139 |
* State-level figure shown where metro postings were too few.
WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings (reported as the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay). Download: CSV · JSON
Local market conditions
Jackson County's 3.5% unemployment rate and manufacturing's 52.4% share of county GDP reflect a labor market still anchored by Ingalls Shipbuilding and Chevron, leaving little slack for finance and back-office talent competing against industrial wages averaging $82,884. Statewide, Finance and Insurance employment contracted to 34,200 jobs in June, down 0.9% year-over-year, while average weekly hours in Financial Activities fell from 37.8 to 35.4 — a pattern consistent with employers trimming overtime and discretionary staffing rather than headcount outright.
What it means
Metro Controller pay sliding to a $89,508 median against a rising national figure of $113,754 suggests Pascagoula employers are either underfunding senior finance roles relative to the national market or relying on internal promotion rather than external recruitment to fill them — a gap that complicates succession and audit-readiness planning if experienced candidates look elsewhere. Falling average weekly hours statewide points to reduced overtime cost exposure for close-cycle crunch periods, a modest tailwind for headcount cost models even as participation rates decline and limit the bench available for backfills. Consider reviewing whether Controller-level compensation is positioned to retain incumbents rather than assuming a shrinking state finance labor pool will self-correct the gap.
Looking ahead
Worth watching: Labor force participation in Mississippi fell to 54.4% from 55.3% year-over-year — a tightening candidate pool that could accelerate the Controller pay gap if local employers compete harder for a shrinking senior finance bench.
Expected: National financial activities payrolls continue shedding jobs (-7,000 in September, -129,000 since May 2025), concentrated in insurance carriers. Watch whether any of that displaced talent surfaces in Jackson County job search activity given the metro's lower cost of living.
Emerging pressure point: Manufacturing leads Mississippi's 2026 WARN filings with 8 notices and 596 affected workers statewide. Pascagoula's dependence on Ingalls Shipbuilding and Chevron means any shift in that employment base could reshape local finance and accounting hiring beyond the sector itself.
Potential inflection point: National average hourly earnings growth decelerated to 3.0% year-over-year in September, below economist expectations — if that moderation persists, it may ease pressure on Senior Accountant and Financial Analyst pay lines that have moved up locally in recent months.
Methodology
Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay. WageScape observes 98% of U.S. job openings daily.
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